(AFP) – Disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was convicted of committing wire fraud and identity theft, left prison on Friday just hours after his sentence was commuted by US President Donald Trump, his attorney told AFP.
Trump wrote in a lengthy post on his Truth Social site Friday that “George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated.”
“And at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN,” he added. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY.”
Santos left the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey and was “on his way home,” his attorney Joseph Murray told AFP by phone late Friday. “God bless President Donald J Trump the greatest President in U.S. history!” Murray wrote in a statement that was posted on Santos’s X account.
A presidential commutation is different to a pardon in that the original conviction stands — but the sentence passed is reduced. The 37-year-old ex-representative from New York state reported to prison in July, after being sentenced to seven years and three months in April for stealing campaign donors’ identities and using their credit cards, among other charges.
A congressional ethics committee investigation revealed his use of stolen funds for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas. Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish, and having been a college volleyball star.
He was expelled from the House in 2023, one year after he was elected to office, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals.
© 2024 AFP
